


limitations of actuality

by ikeaplushie



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Extended Metaphors, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Introspection, No Plot/Plotless, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, excessive use of watercolour imagery, vent fic, writing this felt like a fever dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 20:49:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30044559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ikeaplushie/pseuds/ikeaplushie
Summary: Wilbur is alone, having isolated himself from people he loves, who he knows love him back. And he cannot blame anyone except himself, with his jealousy, and rage. He seems to have become all of the deadly sins in one vessel, striving to create a magnum opus, and his shaking hands hold watercolour paintings that show such an abundance of talent, and such a lack of passion. The love he pushed away needs to return, or he fears he will remain like Sisyphus, holding onto false hope.Even now, he isn’t sure if his feelings, his thoughts, his own identity is truly his. Everyone he has ever thought of, ever met, ever talked to buried themselves surely into his view of the world. Who is he, except the people he loves so much? The people he hates? He needed to find something of his own. Someone who would be loved, and could do no wrong.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Kudos: 1





	limitations of actuality

**Author's Note:**

> this has no plot and too much extended watercolour imagery and excessive use of pretentious language. i sat down and wrote for half an hour and this is what happened.  
> stay safe + drink water <3

Wilbur is a craftsman, forged from self-inflicted pressure, rather than the talent his friends were gifted with. He is not a natural at anything, so the effort must be tenfold in order to rise from his flaws that deem him so human, that mark him as undeserving of the love his friends shower him in. He prides himself on his social interactions, but he knows that he is so much less, and that to focus on his image, his painting in watercolour, so much less than the oils of his friends, would make him better, more deserving. Wilbur knows he cannot learn what his friends were born masters of, and sets his mind on learning how to, and making his watercolour better than that of the Baroque paintings of divinity.

He isn’t sure how he got here. Every day is spent in a haze, clarity just out of his reach, with his compulsions dangling them in front of his face, and he is too exhausted to open the curtains, let alone reevaluate his fragile identity, his painting already perfected, although it is cloudy, missing something vital that sets him apart from the friends he has isolated himself from, that he has pushed away in his devotion to become better. He thinks it might be passion, love for what he is doing to his life. Wilbur remembers vaguely feeling real. Long ago, too long to remember, he started to become a collection of thoughts, a cloud of self-indoctrinated feelings, carried around by something he could not begin to care about. Even now, he isn’t sure if his feelings, his thoughts, his own identity is truly his. Everyone he has ever thought of, ever met, ever talked to buried themselves surely into his view of the world. Who is he, except the people he loves so much? The people he hates? He needed to find something of his own. Someone who would be loved, and could do no wrong.

Wilbur’s memories are watercolour. He remembers them through glasses tinted with nostalgia, watered down by time and age, pastel in a way he refuses to admit is not reminiscent of his real life. They’re all he has left. Memories of a children's toy he saw once in a farmer’s market, a wooden girl, who you wound up, and she would wave at you, blank behind her beautifully, carefully carved eyes, skill and love and passion blooming, evident in manipulating life into art like only true craftsmen can, before falling lifeless. Watercolour blooms, the little toy is rewound, and she waves once more. In bed, Wilbur stares, unseeing, in a way he has mastered, at the wall above him, too bright, too dull. His life has become like that of the doll, he thinks. And he has removed himself from anyone who would learn how to oil the joints of the wood, dust it of the grime it has gathered, and recarve new light into its eyes, with careful, steady hands.

His life is a mimicry of his own shallow self-worth. Beyond anything, he depends on the way people view him. Well, at least how they view his memories. His pastel, watered down with tears of frustration, watercolour memories, torn in a way that flatters him the most, no matter who else it ruins and tears from his life. He would throw himself to the dogs if he thought his carcass would hang in a galaxy. It's injected into every character he plays, the need for importance beyond trivial self. He believes in no God, but the blasphemous worship of a false idol is something held over his head like Tantalus’ fruit, just out of his reach. Who is he without the morality he gave up? 

Despite it all, despite his shaking hands repainting his own history with the highest quality watercolour he can find, trembling in a way only impersonations do, he is still mortal. He is nothing but blood and bone and sinew and flesh. Through his quest for approval from the Gods he has allowed to rule over his life, he has ripped himself open, and he is full of unnecessary rage and hate, and he is so alone. It hits him now, standing over his sink, staring at the blood on his neck from a nick on the razor while shaving. His blood is red, matte, drying into brown. Undeniably mortal. No matter who he tricks, he can never trick himself, he can never trick his own knowledge of being a fraud. 

Wilbur barely looks human, twisted in false worship and the exhaustiveness of his charade. The knowledge he is not a good person disgusts him, that he may have never been. It crawls up the tendons in his neck and strangles him. He closes his eyes and is sinking further into lead, falling from a tightrope he convinced himself was stable. He is standing at the altar he built himself, one that he convinced people he was worthy of receiving praise from, no matter how fleeting, however temporary and flimsy. The gold is desecrated with the promises he left unfinished, the people he has shut himself away from, but the sun is still catching on the evidence of their love for him, despite his false image projected for the world to see, pixelated and laughably misleading. 

No one wakes him up. No one waits for him. He is undeniably alone, and his own pride and greed and self is all he can blame. Wilbur tricks himself to think he is free at last, he has perfected his craftsmanship of his false life, tangled in a web he has surrendered to, no matter the evident lack of love within his watercolour. Despite his word painting, his love for metaphors and lies, he is still human. And he is still alone. He used to think he would trade anything to feel worth something. Maybe that’s where it went wrong. He doesn’t know who he is. 

He knows he is his parents, his friends, the references of his past memories, unchanged, untainted, that inspired his watercolour paintings. He is caught between saying too much, and from removing everyone from his life and allowing his rebirth. But Wilbur knows he has to stop running, stop living through lucid dreams that decimate the limitations of his actuality, that have led to profanities mixed with tragedy, revealing his slow spiralling insanity. 

He is not a God. He cannot be reborn. All he can do is reform, and pray that the people that he hasn’t allowed himself to love for so long, still love him enough to begin to forgive him for chasing divinity to fill a mortal flaw within himself. To allow himself to finally create a magnum opus, carefully crafted and full of love like the doll within his watercolour memories his life has become, but so much more, so that he can stop lying and living in a cycle of misery.


End file.
